


Sea legs

by Whatclaptrap



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: but in fairness the cryptic little shit rambles a lot, kind of rambling, learning how to human again, poor Billie being his babysitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 12:57:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14694678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whatclaptrap/pseuds/Whatclaptrap
Summary: It is a difficult thing to adjust to, at first.  Being human, after being eternal?  That would be difficult for anybody.  A short thing I wrote after finishing all of Dishonored, just some pondering ficlet.





	Sea legs

It is a difficult thing to adjust to, at first. 

 

Sleep.He remembers sleep, after a fashion.Never like this.The years and generations have made him, the eternal sleeper, confounded by the simple human act.It seems a parody of itself. 

 

He does not enjoy sleep.It takes away his time, his human time.Perhaps for something as ageless as he is, he should not be grasping for every day like it’s a precious thing.Only, if there is one thing that he has learned, it’s that the moments are to be treasured, so important.They are his own days, roaming the streets of Dunwall at Billie Lurk’s heels, relearning how to be human.It is difficult.It is impossible.But it is worth it. 

 

Sleep makes it more difficult.Sleep touches the void.When he sleeps, he can feel that cold expanse once more.He can see in ways that others never have.It was his home and his cage for so long, it would be impossible for him not to. The whales still circle him, vast and incomprehensible, singing songs he no longer knows how to speak.When he wakes it is hard to remember that he is a living being of flesh and blood.He has been a god for thousands of years.He hasn’t even been human for one. 

 

There are many places that they must stay away from.His likeness - the likeness of the Outsider - it is common enough to see.The portraits fascinate him.Narcissistic, perhaps, but the way humans paint his void-deep eyes is enthralling.Billie has had to drag him away from more than one, cursing his dullness the entire way.The running is oddly familiar.When he had been living the first time, he had been an orphaned thing living off of scraps.Not so different, now.The ghost of a dead god, walking through living streets.Trying, of course, not to laugh when he sees the graffiti that says _the outsider walks among us_.Closer than some might think. 

 

Food is… different.It depends on where they get their meals.He has tasted fresh fruit the likes of which he’d never had, cool and sweet and refreshing, with juice running down his chin.Bread stilll warm from the oven, delicious in its own simplicity.Dishes of meat roasted over fires, glazed with symphonies of flavor.Those are treasured memories, rewriting what he’d experienced as a child.He has also subsisted on tinned hagfish, slimy in its own mucous on the long trip from Karnaca to Dunwall, and hard bread that had long since gone stale, so dry that it crunched under his teeth. That experience is one that he is indifferent towards repeating. 

 

It is odd the first time that Billie takes him to Dunwall Tower.He considers refusing.He is not quite sentimental, not in the way humans are, and there is no reason to bother the Empress and her father.But Billie wears the look upon her face that says she will take him, or she will drag him, and there is no use arguing. 

 

They meet upon a rooftop, not far from Dunwall Tower.The Outsider is certain he’s been there in a dream.They do not wait long before Emily appears in the outfit she always wears for her midnight excursions, and Corvo follows at a distance, never too far, a comforting shadow. 

 

“What is so important that we need to meet like this?”Emily asks Billie, when she arrives.Billie stands alone, having forced him to wait upon threat of bodily injury in the shadows. _’In case things go south’,_ she said, which they do so often. He wonders how much it matters; he wonders if Emily and Corvo both continue to make use of their dark vision, or if his departure from the Void has lessened their powers.It hasn’t lessened Billie’s, but she was never his to begin with. 

 

Before Billie can answer, Emily sucks in a breath.“What happened to your eye?Your arm?” 

 

The Outsider tries not to smirk.He knows that Emily knows what she’d changed; as of yet, she hadn’t seen what _he’d_ changed, the void-dark eye and arm Billie used so well.

 

Billie snorts.“It’s a long story.A very long story.”

 

“Who do you have with you?”That is Corvo’s voice, stern and suspicious.Once more, the Outsider has to hold back a smirk - of course Corvo would know, somehow, that there was another in the shadows.Emily arches a brow, but she does little more than that. 

 

“Shouldn’t be a shock that the Lord Protector isn’t a big fan of surprises,” Billie mutters.“There will only be more questions after this.” 

 

She waves for him, her void hand.There is some symbolism there, he is sure of it.He stands, and he steps out of the shadows, as he has always done.The way that they react is amusing.Emily’s eyes go wide, her lips parting just a fraction as she takes a step back.Corvo curses, and he rushes forwards, trying to place himself between Emily and any threat.They both stand, wide-eyed and shocked.They are trying to determine, for a wild second, if they’d slipped into the void. 

 

This time, the smirk does cross his face, as old and timeless as he is. 

 

Billie, for all that she is humorless, seems to understand his pleasure.She spreads her hands, dipping in the smallest of sarcastic bows.“Emily, Corvo, meet the Outsider.” 


End file.
